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According to recent research there are a number of phrases that irritate the hell out of the majority of normal people. Further research suggests that around half of the people who use these phrases are the usual Office Plonkers whilst the other half are Office Plonker Baiters.

These OFBs are our leaders of the future who are showing the early signs of being irritating, irresponsible and invidious – the 3i’s of middle, menial and mediocre management that eventual develop into a full blown 3M management strategy (Me, Me, Me).

We are here of course to help out people from ‘C’ level all the way down to the lower level Mediocre Management tiers so here are a few phrases, for those aspiring to manage, that will curdle the brains of your colleagues and will help pass a long winter afternoon or enliven a meeting.

Phrases guaranteed to irritate your colleagues:

Can I borrow you for a sec? (13%)

How long is a piece of string? (11%)

Think outside the box (11%)

Teamwork, dreamwork (11%)

Keep me in the loop (9%)

Win-win (9%)

Pick your brains (8%)

I’m stacked (8%)

Blue sky thinking (8%)

Just playing devil’s advocate (8%)

However a word of warning never the use the phrases listed below as these are only used by Office Plonkers. OPs spouting cliches are to be kept well clear of as they will drain the very life force from your caffeine addicted persona and leave it as a moist patch on the office carpet to be trampled on by all who pass you by.

Irritating online expressions people say in the workplace

OMG (26%)

LOL (19%)

FYI (12%)

Epic fail (10%)

Cringe (8%)

Swag (6%)

YOLO (5%)

On point / on fleek (4%)

For the win (4%)

That’s cray (3%)

If cornered the best thing to ask an OP for is an ‘Enhanced Assessment Methodology’ implying that it was a request from their line manager’s manager.

I have been a little tardy of late and, as a result, not written words of wisdom for you, my dear Institute of Mediocre Management members. My poor excuse is that that unfortunately, due to a number of unenforced management errors, my global empire has of late taken a battering. But luckily we have managed to steady the ship and the share price by re-organising, thus maintaining our salaries and bonuses. This was quite simple, we just fired a lot of people. The downside was the paper work, they wouldn’t go without a fuss, thus wasting my management’s time and more seriously mine, so I was not able to update this collection of excellent and enlightening essays . So blame them.

‘The World’s Grumpiest Boss’ dies

It was with great sadness that I read about the recent death of Mike “Do your jobs and keep your mouth shut!” Davies, who was a spiritual mentor of mine.

Mike Davis was a former chauffeur before he became a Houston oil and gas magnate. But he earned an even greater measure of notoriety as the author of blunt and widely circulated office memos that earned him the unofficial title “world’s grumpiest boss.” “There will be no more birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity or celebrations of any kind within the office,” the boss wrote on Feb. 8, 1978. “This is a business office. If you have to celebrate, do it after office hours on your own time.”

I had the pleasure of meeting him once and he repeated verbatim the memo he once sent famously to his employees at the Tiger Oil company in the 1970’s

“Do not speak to me when you see me, if I want to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don’t want to ruin it by saying hello to (all of) you.”

I took that to heart and Anglicised that, telling my associates oiks to “Shut up and know your place” – I’m sure that those I haven’t ‘let go’ yet still think of this with some amusement.

As a boss, Mike lead from the front screaming, hung around the middle yelling, whilst pushing from the back swearing. Had he been in management 20 years later his enlightening, challenging and witty epithets would be adorning the walls of most of our major corporations as ‘Motivational Posters’.

His memos (for those under 40 – a memo is what your grandad used instead of email) included:

ON NOTES THAT WEREN’T TYPED: “Handwriting takes much longer than a typewriter. You’re wasting your time, but more importantly, you’re wasting my time. If you don’t know how to type, you’d better learn.”

ON RUNNING OUT FOR CIGARETTES: “I suggest that you people buy enough cigarettes to keep here for yourselves to smoke because, by God, you will not go and buy them on my time.”

ON TAKING THINGS FROM HIS DESK: “I do not appreciate people coming into my office and helping themselves to my candy, cigars, medicine and other personal items … I don’t mind giving, but I would like the privilege of knowing and giving it myself.”

ON HIPPIE-STYLE LONG HAIR: “Anyone who lets their hair grow below their ears to where I can’t see their ears means they don’t wash. If they don’t wash, they stink. And if they stink, I don’t want the son-of-a-bitch around me.”

ON LANGUAGE: “I swear, but since I am the owner of this company, that is my privilege, and this privilege is not to be interpreted as the same for any employee. That differentiates me from you, and I want to keep it that way. There will be absolutely no swearing, by any employee, male or female, in this office, ever.”

We can all learn from his leadership skills, although nowadays you need to be a little less direct due to the namby-pamby HR centric rules that seem to be prevalent in this neo- socialist society that we live in. To cover your tracks just stick up a motivational poster or two like this.

The final word must come from Mike and of course I’m sure that I.M.M. members could use this wisdom almost verbatim when addressing colleagues resources about holiday entitlement.

And don’t forget this incredibly informative and hugely invaluable book is still available from Amazon UK and Amazon US eBook and for posh people in print as well.

The I.M.M. recently brought in a Change Management consultant to review our employment philosophy guidelines and he came up with a ‘New Thinking’ proposal. As the precocious stripey-shirted oik was charging us a significant percentage of the National Debt per day to come up with this information, initially we had to take it seriously. His report, a 521 page Powerpoint ‘deck’, remains unread, it’s mostly a cut and paste for something he did for B.P., but we did read the executive summary. Well most of it anyway.

Rufus , our MBA qualified Intern has now transposed this onto a single slide with the Institute’s comments. We apologise for the tardiness of the response but our Chairman was concerned about the font and the shade of red used and whether this was ‘on brand’ or not.

As you can see from the above, we will be continuing to used the tried and tested I.M.M. thinking which has worked very well for our members, mostly ‘C’ level execs who all successfully rode out the recession. This thinking is also supported by the vast majority of the FTSE 250 roster whose executive pay has also managed to keep pace with top end house price and luxury car inflation which is awful. “Oh to live in a two up two down in Bolton, so much less hassle” is a common refrain at the Club.

The New Thinking concept is prevalent mainly in new start up companies that tend to locate themselves in Shoreditch (in an industrial estate bordered by an abattoir and London’s largest squat). They all sit on Bean Bags full of Fairtrade Llama fur and play table football while eating Quinoa wraps. It’s a wonder they find time to drag their brains from FaceChat to do any work.

In the end, the only person to make any dosh out of this type of enterprise, will be the founder and his mate. Having borrowed 13 squillion pounds to create an App that links together people who have an unhealthy interest in Armadillos with others who are similarly inclined but also vegan, they then sell out to a multinational techie conglomerate who are desperate to acquire the next new thing and have plenty of spare cash because they don’t pay any taxes.

Therefore our conclusion, unanimously agreed over a rather pleasant lunch at our corporate hospitality box was to leave things as is. Far less work.

Brian’s report, which he has now modified, to reflect what we thought in the first place, is available to all our members. It is on the website but of course we can fax it over if you prefer and for our luddite contingent a typed transcript is also available. For really busy Thought Leaders a single 3 bullet point summary may also be requested.

If you think the term 􏰀low-hanging fruit􏰁 should describe a soft object that hits you on the head as you walk through an orchard, rather than a business opportunity that is easy to deliver, then you will love this book!

The Master of Corporate Administration (MCA) covers key topics such as finance, marketing, projects and presentations. It’s a course guaranteed to set readers on the path to financial rewards, power and share options, by answering a variety of questions that include:

Why do CEOs with a 4-year contract always have 5-year plans? Is a liability a financial metric or a description of the leadership team? How can an inanimate object like a company have corporate values?

How To Get To The Top Without Working Too Hard provides a humorous look at the business and professional world. It’s the perfect, light-hearted read for anyone who wants to get to the top… and fast!

*this should read 50% increase in MY income. Apologies for any inconvenience caused

It was with great sadness that a telex has reached me this morning to say that Duncan Bowen had died. Duncan was an artiste of the very highest calibre and a close personal friend.

Duncan on the left with fellow Beetle Ringo Stardust

Mr Bowen was best known as a musician, playing both the xylophone and the euphonium but it was his deep booming bass voice that I will remember him best for. His vocal on his most famous hit, Major Tommy, laced with a melliflouos, chocolate flavoured, husky intonation invariably makes me weep.

He was born in Brighton in 1934, the son of a toad sexer and a wet nurse and was a precocious child, belting out his own lyrics during his primary school Nativity play. Hark the Hairy Angels Smell was possibly his first ever penned song.

Being invariably cast as the rear end of third donkey probably helped kick start his love of dressing up and his famous holistic sexuality. One will not go further than that as this is a family blog but it was no different to what we thought leaders experienced at boarding school when we were chaste young boys.

Bowen’s first chart topping LP was ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ a curiously cryptic concept album about the life and times of a public transportation vehicle. I usually better understood the lyrics after one of Griselda’s long herby cigarettes.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.The wheels on the bus go round and round,all day long

Genius…

Bowen then changed from his light popular music persona, The Man from Uncle, to a much spacier character, Zombie Bombie. Zombie produced the seminal work Zombie Bombie’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his then unknown backing band the Beetles

Bombie was also to last just one album and he sailed through the next decades continually re-inventing himself musically and as an artistic artiste in the art world.

I met the man after I had sold the world in 1983 to a hedge fund manager friend of mine. When I told him the story Duncan laughed and scibbled down some notes which I believe were the basis for his well known song ‘Norman is a Knob’.

In the nineties, Bowen, had DNA injections to help him make changes to his nuclear structure and he lived quietly in a Manhattan Zoo screeching out his back catalogue for peanuts and the occasional grape

Duncan Bowen Ch.. Ch..Changes again

But sadly all good things must end and we must report Duncan’s demise. He had been unwell for some time, having suffered from Sprout for a while, his extremities going green and flaky with and emitting a damp, musty aroma.

His final performance at Slough’s Municipal Baths was attended by the great, the good and some politicians. Sponsored by the I.M.M. it raised over £100 for the Osborne Home for Tax Avoiders in Mustique.

DB’s Swansong

Duncan leaves an unknown number of children, 3 wives (well 4 actually but the others don’t know about that one) plus a back catalogue of immeasurable wealth consisting of finger paintings, recipes for boiled tortoise and several of his unfinished books. Dunc we will miss you.

Note to Ed – Is this ok? Only met the bastard once and he left me the bloody tab..

At last we can consign Paradigm Shifts, Compelling Consumer Propositions, Swim Lanes and all that 20th century mumbo jumbo that enabled us all to bullsh*t our way through two decades of mediocrity, to the dustbin of ridicule.

Now as we start to hand over the reigns of power to a younger generation of hopelessly inadequate, unqualified yet surprisingly confident underlings it is gratifying to see that finally they are beginning to stand on their own two feet*.

Although late in coming, our new intake of mediocre managers are finally creating a world of impenetrable, meaningless jargon that can be used to convince others of their supposed intellectual superiority.

Steve Tenants has provided a useful technical text generator for both young and old techno-babbling jedi spawn which may be used to confuse the client/boss. For example:

They’re inside the array, use the optical CD-ROM mainframe to copy their transistor!

Send the auxiliary array into the bandwidth, it will copy the malware by navigating its HDD network!

Use the fibre optic COM monitor, then you can attach the analogue protocol!

In additional to mouthing mindless inanities, youthful would be managers need to display a typical, traditional, one of the herd look so they don’t stand out but blend in with their peers.

For men, add a beard, remove the trouser belt, display pants and walk around permanently clasping a smart phone to a sweaty palm.

For ladies you do not have to grow a beard. Try carrying a large designer handbag in the crook of your arm, with a Starbucks in one hand and phone in other whilst tottering around on a pair of Jimmy Choos.

Here at the I.M.M. we senior executives of course still prefer to wear bespoke suits and club ties although Barry/Sheila our senior accountant does like handbags and wearing Louboutin shoes at weekends.

My dear colleague, Donald Trumpington III, the CEO at International Systems Integrated Software headquartered out of Syria (for tax reasons, I understand) has just re-organised the company in order to prop up Management’s request for an increased bonus this year.

He has kindly offered to share his company’s new organisation chart with us all.

The usual 10% of his minions will get the heave-ho in order to generate sufficient profit, but as its Xmas, they are usually mentally prepared for being cast aside into the howling winds of despair and despondency. To ease their pain, dear Donald has allowed them to come to the first hour of the office party for a soft drink and a mince pie. If they stayed later they would just hoover up the atmosphere for the rest of the team with their long faces and whingeing.

There’s some more good news! I.M.M. members are invited to apply for a new role at I.S.I.S, which reports directly into the VP of Fear, Dotty Beaver, Dotty as you may recall provided us with her festive Roast Kitten recipe last year.

Please attach a C.V., cover letter and send a magnum of Bolly to the Club where applications will be evaluated based on who you know rather than on merit.

Note: I.S.I.S. do actively discriminate on almost every form of deviation from the norm so if you do not; look like, behave like, act like, the typical average, underperforming, middle management muppet, then don’t waste the postage.

A new survey by Reed.co.uk has found that most people rate a good work/life balance above salary when it comes to career satisfaction.The survey found that the following 10 factors were most important for contentment at work:

Easy daily commute

Cool / fun work space

Good work / life balance

Salary

Job security

Work social events

Working alongside inspiring colleagues

Good promotion prospects

Extra holiday

Dress down Friday

The I.M.M. therefore suggest that if you are looking to downsize efficiently, i.e. get the ungrateful lot of money grabbing, whining malcontents that drain your company’s profits off the books may we respectfully suggest the following ‘re-organisation’

Move the office away from public transport and have manager-only parking